Montclair hawk watch turns heads

Jack Bradshaw spots some high-flying migratory birds against the clouds as the spring bird migration northward attracts bird watchers flocking to Mills Reservation on Saturday, April 26.Bird watchers take sight of some broadwinged hawks.

"Having a few clouds like this is perfect."

So said Wayne Greenstone, a board member of the Montclair Bird Club, as he and his wife Else, her lucky binocular necklace around her neck, stepped up to the vista above Edgecliff Road in Mills Reservation. Else Greenstone has been running the hawk watch in partnership with the N.J. Audubon Society for more than 30 years.

The clouds give definition to the birds, making it easier to see their flight patterns above the thermal updrafts that they coast on, Greenstone explained.

Last week's gusty winds had brought broadwinged hawks and other migrating raptor birds quite close, and "naked eye" sightings were easy. On Saturday, April 26, about a dozen hawk-watching enthusiasts craned their necks to the skies, with spottings a little more distant on this day, but still frequent.

"There they are! Look up! Look up!" yelled Donald Desjardins of Cedar Grove, perched on a cement platform, suspected to be part of an old gunnery.

"Too much talk talk talkin', not enough hawk hawk hawkin,'" Ray Gilbert, a Montclair business owner and Nutley resident, later declared to his fellow birders.

The hawk watchers report their sightings to the official counter, Andrew Burmester, an intern with the N.J. Audubon Society, which oversees this scientific data-gathering operation seven days a week with the Montclair Bird Club.

"This is my therapy," said Jeff Bradshaw, a psychotherapist who works with addicts. "This is my spirituality. Maybe I was a bird in a past life, I don't know ... This forces me to slow down."

The hawk watch also takes place in the fall, on the other side of the little split in the First Watchung Ridge. The fall hawk watch is even busier; in spring, flight patterns are a little more dispersed.

Also, not all the hawks that migrated South will make it back, the birders explained.

Birding takes patience, and a bit of muscle for holding up binoculars. One amateur birder spotted a figure through the clouds, then realized it was a plane. "We call those 'gashawks,'" Wayne Greenstone said.

As this reporter watched a hawk through binoculars, another came into focus, then another, and even more in the distance.

Songbirds chirped in the woods nearby.

"All these species here, right in Montclair!" said Else Greenstone, with a smile.

Wayne is drawn to birding, he said, because it connects him.

"You think about the incredible journey these birds make every year. It's all part of the rhythm of life," he said. There is so much to see and observe in the natural world, Wayne continued. "It's just a matter of being aware of it."